Spicy Baked Eggs with Sweet Potatoes

Did everyone watch the Oscars last night? I thought it was just fine. I loved all of the dancing and musical numbers at the beginning, but I think that it kind of dragged for the rest of the night. There wasn’t anything too exciting, in my opinion, anyway. Seth MacFarland did alright, better than James Franco and Anne Hathaway last year. The highlight was obviously my girl Jennifer Lawrence winning for best actress, and I didn’t mind seeing Christoph Waltz pick up Oscar Number Two for Django – he is so adorable that I just want to grab his shoulders and give him a squeeze. Honestly, though, can we please get Billy Crystal or Ellen to host again? We need someone with a bit more confidence up there, I think. I know that the Academy probably wants to switch it up to make things more interesting (supposedly), but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I really just want more song and dance. Emphasis on the dance. If they just put Joseph Gordon Levitt up there and let him tap dance all night, I’d be a much happier lady. We all would. We went to Morgan’s apartment to watch the Oscars, and we all ate pizza and had a few drinks, but no big party. We had a party one year at our place, but I am getting too old to be doing that kind of thing on a work night. By the time everyone leaves and I clean up (because my mother has instilled in me a strong desire to immediately clean everything up after a party instead of waiting until the next day, or in my case, the next day after work), it’s so late and I am exhausted and the next day is painful. If they would just make the day after the Oscars (and the Superbowl, for that matter) a national holiday, the world would be a much better place. Until then, I’m taking it easy on Oscar night. I learned my lesson three years ago!

Loitering with Othello Silla last week.I do think that I had a successful weekend, though. On Friday night, Valerie, Lindsey, and I all went out to The Breslin for dinner. It was incredible. We had all kinds of pate and headcheeses (yum), razor clams, blood sausage with a fried duck egg, thinly sliced roast beef with bone marrow butter on toast, and kale salad with fried chickpeas and lamb bacon. All alongside a few cocktails, of course. After dinner, Valerie and I met up with Kramer and her fiancée Tom for drinks at Old Town Bar, which I loved. It’s hard to find a good, regular bar in New York, especially in Manhattan. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g is a cocktail bar now, and sometimes you just want a beer or a gin and tonic without any frills. Having said that, we finished up the night with frilly cocktails at one of the fanciest places in the city, The NoMad. I will say, they were really good! But I’d still be just as happy with a tall, cold beer. Kramer and I slept in on Saturday, like really slept in, then I made polenta for breakfast (or, at this point, let’s be real: it was lunch) and we finally got our new couch delivered that we bought a month ago. We tried really hard to find a good home for our old couch, but with no luck, which I felt bad about because it was still in pretty good condition and it was a fold-out. No thrift stores or donation centers would pick it up, and we couldn’t find any friends that needed it. So, out onto the curb it went. Kramer and I moved it out there ourselves – I was very impressed with us! Believe it or not, though, when we got home later after seeing the Oscar live action shorts at Nitehawk, the couch was gone! Someone wanted it after all. I also watched a guy take our old chair and ottoman away on his back – I was impressed with him, too. Anyway, I’m glad that the garbage men didn’t have to lug it around with them all day during their pickup this afternoon. Everything worked out better than expected.

This is what I made for breakfast the weekend before last, and the sauce is one of my new favorite things. I accidentally added two jars of sun dried tomatoes to my grocery order a few weeks ago, and as Kramer absolutely hates them on their own, I wasn’t really sure what to do with them. However, I do love baked eggs, so I figured, why not just puree the tomatoes? It’s the texture that he doesn’t like; the flavor is fantastic. And that is exactly what I did (obviously). I’m a problem solver, guys. This sauce was absolutely delicious. It’s rich and hearty, with layer after layer of flavor, which is perfect for waking you up in the morning. I added an entire jalapeno to it, because we like spicy food, but you can omit it, if you like…although I say it’s time to face your fears and go with the jalapeno. The sweet potato made this into a full meal, and we got some bread from Amy’s to toast and dip, sopping up all of the spicy tomato and golden egg yolk goodness. You’d better believe that Kramer went back for seconds and got over his dislike of sun dried tomatoes! That’s important, right? Right. But really, this feels like a fancy, gourmet dish when you serve it, and in reality, it takes minimal effort to put together, just as weekend brunch at home should be.

Morgan and me.
As you can see, it’s incredibly easy to throw this together – just saute your sweet potatoes, add in your pureed tomato mixture, crack some eggs on top, and bake!

Be sure to serve with lots of crusty bread to dip in the eggs and sauce.